Emmanuel Macron sets sights on Europe reforms

France's president gave a speech at the forum in which he laid out his ideas to restructure Europe. But the FT's Gideon Rachman points to the scepticism from other Europeans, who will be looking at the reforms Mr Macron brings in his own country

Transcript

The big star of Davos so far this year has been Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, and that's partly because he's the new kid on the block. He was only elected last year, but also because he's, I think, seen very generally here as the hope for reform in Europe and reform in France.

And the two ideas are intimately connected because I think a lot of France's European partners will only be prepared to move on deeper European integration, if they can see that Macron is pushing through structural reforms in France itself.

And that was very much the task that Macron set himself here at Davos. He had a packed hall-- a hall that was keen to give him the benefit of the doubt-- gave him a standing ovation at the end.

Generally, he spoke pretty convincingly, if a little too long, I think. He went on for over an hour. And I could see that the hall was beginning to thin out at the end, because he is simultaneously a bit of a visionary and somebody who believes in big ideas for Europe, which he puts across quite well.

But he's also a bit of a nerd. He likes his reform ideas. He gave five different pillars for different forms of internal reform in France. He then switched to Europe and had another laundry list of ideas there. But, nonetheless, I think there was a sense that the wind was in the sails of President Macron.

However, this morning, I also got a faint note of scepticism when I did a breakfast with the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rosa, who, in general, was very pro Macron-- said he was encouraged by him, but also sceptical about the possibilities of reform in France. He said that France had never really been properly reformed since the late 1950s. And was, I think, a little bit anxious that perhaps before all these domestic reforms are properly in place, the other Europeans will be asked to sign up to things like common European bank deposit insurance, a common European structural fund, which I think the Dutch and maybe even the Germans, too, worry will come with a big price attached for them.

So although there's generally a sense that Europe is now once again on the move, partly because of Macron's election, there is also clearly big issues and remaining tensions.